The Immanent Frame

Glenn Beck has now decided to tell you what church to go to. In a recent episode, reports Politics Daily, Beck tells listeners to leave churches that preach social justice, equating efforts to help the needy with fascism and communism.

In the New York Times, Nicolas Kristoff suggests that if secular liberals and religious actors who are working to help those in need could bridge their differences on issues of sexual morality, the world would be much better off.

Since the release last week of the Chicago Council on Global Affairs’ detailed and lengthy report (pdf) on the state of US engagement with religious communities at large, and its religious freedom agenda more broadly, there has been a sharp increase in attention to the role of religion in US foreign policy. The report itself argues that, because of the officially secular nature of US foreign relations, the government has failed to make connections with many countries in which the boundary between religion and affairs of state does not exist as such.

In the Huffington Post, Princeton Professsor Paul Raushenbush argues that he can’t think of one religious reason to be against health care reform and that all arguments against such reform essentially come down to selfishness.

We try to understand the relationship between economics and nearly every other demographic characteristic, so why not religion? This chart from GOOD, in collaboration with Column Five Media, breaks down the main religious groups in the US by income.

Late last week, the Brookings Institute convened a day-long conference marking the tenth anniversary of the faith-based initiative. Josh DuBois, current head of the new White House Faith and Neighborhood Council, kicked off the conference by discussing the latest White House efforts and arguing that these would mark a new kind of faith-based initiative. However, while he stressed the differences between the Bush and Obama White House efforts, there has been little actual evidence of these differences.

Religious leaders have long been involved in political debates, social movements, and policy discussions. In a recent piece in on The Dallas Morning News‘s Religion Blog, Wayne Slater wonders whether or not the Supreme Court’s recent decision on campaign finance could change the way religious organizations interact with the political world by allowing them to directly endorse candidates.

Who are the prominent movers and shakers at the Tea Party convention? The Daily Beast reports.

Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) has urged the President to not attend the National Prayer Breakfast, reports the Huffington Post.

In Lancaster, CA, many argue that Mayor R. Rex Parris is attempting to make the town a “Christian” community by supporting a ballot initiative that would make prayer—including prayer invoking a specific deity—mandatory at all city meetings.